Following my previous post, Pineapple Tarts (Looking For The One), I received so many helpful comments and tips from readers and bloggers alike. Thank you all, so very much! You’ve helped me lots and I really appreciate it.
I tried my hand at making Kue Nastar (Indonesian style pineapple tarts) yesterday, usingAmy Beh’s recipe. It was recommended by Ann of pigpigscorner. Thanks, Ann!
So there I was, preparing the dough, wondering if this could be THE ONE. It started out promising enough – the dough looked very buttery and creamy. Unfortunately, everything went downhill right after that.
The moment I moved on to the piping, it was Nastar, Spectacular, Disastar all the way! A disaster of epic proportions.
Out of the 80-something pineapple jam balls here, I only managed to wrap about 30 the whole afternoon! In contrast, I managed to make about 100 open-faced tarts the day before.
It took me such a long time just to get some decent-looking Kue Nastar (10 good, 20 bad). Most were curiously misshapen at best, hideously ugly at worst. The problem with making melt-in-your-mouth pastry is handling the melt-in-your-hands dough. You need a deft, light touch which I obviously lacked. The ridges on the Nastar dough kept getting disfigured every time I did the wrapping. And I had to re-do and re-do and re-do. Don’t even talk to me about glazing.
Having said that, don’t they look elegant? I’ve always loved the look of Kue Nastar. I just didn’t know they were fussy little divas. So hard to work with! Or is it just me? Boo hoo!
Perhaps I will try these again another time, when I feel up to the challenge. The recipe is sound and the pastry is good, but for now, I’m sticking with open-faced tarts. Back to the drawing board, folks!
